


read me like an open book

by ApatheticRobots



Series: little things, all the stereotypes [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: First Meetings, Flirting, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Relationship, probably? g1 canon is fucked up and weird idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28559643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApatheticRobots/pseuds/ApatheticRobots
Summary: “Well, you seem remarkably out of place.”The voice sounded from behind him, and it made Skyfire jump, because his first thought was a baffledhow did they know??Then he realized it was probably incredibly obvious.(or, Skyfire goes to a fancy party he technically wasn't invited to, is never told what an important figure looks like and therefore doesn't recognize him on sight, rambles about plants, nearly has a panic attack, and falls in love, all in the span of about an hour. Basically, it's a very eventful night for the poor mech.)
Relationships: Jetfire | Skyfire/Starscream (Transformers)
Series: little things, all the stereotypes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200125
Comments: 10
Kudos: 100





	read me like an open book

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd, written over the course of, like, a day after i got the idea for it at like three in the morning. title is from "About Love" by MARINA cause its a very skystar song for me. 
> 
> tc and wheeljack have maybe five lines each theyre more background characters lol

“Well, you seem remarkably out of place.”

The voice sounded from behind him, and it made Skyfire jump, because his first thought was a baffled  _ how did they know?? _ Then he realized it was probably incredibly obvious.

Skyfire was not one for fancy events. Or social outings in general. The closest thing he got to “attending a party” was being in his and Wheeljack’s shared apartment when the other scientist invited over friends. And even then Skyfire would usually only spend a few minutes around them before retreating to his room to avoid the awkward interactions. It wasn’t that he didn’t  _ like _ other people, he just… wasn’t very good at talking to them. He tended to ramble, or weird other mechs out with the kind of stuff he was into (not that it was  _ bad _ weird! He just liked plants and animals and organic life and most mechs were kinda grossed out by that), and it was always painfully obvious that when Wheeljack’s friends talked to him they were just trying to make him feel included out of pity or something.

So when Wheeljack asked Skyfire to be his plus one to a fancy event in Vos, he’d been a bit taken aback. When he’d asked if the scientist was sure, Wheeljack had shrugged, and his reasoning had essentially boiled down to “Vos doesn’t really like grounders so my invitation was enough of a statement and I don’t want to make things worse by bringing another ground frame along.” And Skyfire was the only flight frame he really knew. So Skyfire had checked his schedule and passively agreed and not really thought much of it.

Until he’d gotten to the event, and realized it was actually  _ really  _ fancy, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do or how he was supposed to act. Wheeljack had abandoned him a few minutes into it to go talk to some flight frame from Polyhex, which meant he was left to his own devices in a room full of mechs who probably thought he wasn’t supposed to be there that he didn’t know how to interact with. In the end he’d just planted himself near a wall and hoped to Primus that no one tried to talk to him.

Apparently, his hopes had not been answered.

Skyfire winced, cursing his lack of knowledge on how a mech was supposed to act at these kinds of events, and turned to face the speaker with an apology on the edge of his vocalizer. The words promptly died when his optics settled on what was probably the shiniest Seeker he’d ever run across. Not that he’d seen a plethora of Seekers, of course, but of the ones he  _ had _ met, this one was decidedly the prettiest. So instead of apologizing and explaining that these sort of events weren’t his forte whatsoever and he was only here because his friend had been invited, he just made a rather startled and incoherent noise.

The Seeker raised an optical ridge, looking him up and down with a look of clear suspicion and only mildly concealed disgust. “Are you even supposed to be here? Or did you just assume this event had an open-door policy? I can have security over here in seconds, you know.”

Damnit.  _ Say something, idiot. _ “Sorry,” he stuttered out, “um. I’m-- My friend was invited. Wheeljack. I’m his, um, plus one. ‘Cause he needed to bring someone but no one else was really available and he didn’t want to bring another grounder along so he asked me and--” And he was rambling. Skyfire shut his jaw with a click. “Sorry,” he muttered again. 

The other mech’s skeptical expression faded to something more like a knowing smirk. As well as… the slightest bit of wonder? “I see. First time brushing wings with the higher classes?”

He grinned helplessly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Oh, dreadfully so.” The Seeker glanced around, then waved to Skyfire in a gesture that was clearly an invitation to follow him. “Come on. I could use a break from all of this, and you look like you’re about to spontaneously combust. There’s a quiet little spot I know of, we’ll be able to take a moment there.”

Well, even if he probably shouldn’t be following strange mechs to secluded areas, this Seeker had the air of a noblemech, and it would be decidedly rude to decline. Plus, well. If someone  _ really _ wanted to kidnap Skyfire or do something unsavory, they’d have one hell of a time carrying him anywhere he wasn’t keen on going. So he pushed himself off the wall he’d been basically cowering next to and trailed after the brightly colored wings making their way through the room along the edges of the crowd.

The building was clearly not made with a mech of Skyfire’s size in mind, with how much he had to duck to fit through doorways, and nearly tripped up the stairs as he attempted to take small enough steps. The solution to the last part ended up being just walking up two or three steps at a time.

The Seeker watched with clear amusement in his optics as Skyfire struggled, but didn’t say a word until they reached the end of the various twisting hallways he’d been leading them through. And when he did speak it was just a simple “here we are” as he pushed open a wide set of double doors.

Past the doors at first  _ looked _ like a straight drop to the ground miles below (something Skyfire had discovered was actually a pretty normal feature in homes built by and for fliers, mostly by how many times he’d almost fallen out of them), but as he got closer he saw there was actually a small balcony set out before them, with some organic plantlife set around the edges and a bench facing out towards the Vosian skyline. There was no railing to keep them from tripping and falling, but again-- city of fliers. They didn’t really have a need for safety rails. 

Letting the doors close behind them and striding past Skyfire as he stared mildly dumbstruck by the beauty of the city at night, the Seeker took a seat on the bench, then gestured for Skyfire to join him.

He did, after only a moment of hesitation, and the bench only gave a low creak but held even under his weight. 

“So,” the Seeker said, “you’re friends with Wheeljack? Are you a scientist as well, then?”

Skyfire glanced over at him. “Yeah, I am. Do you know Wheeljack?”

A shrug. “I know of him. We’ve never personally spoken, but I like to make sure I’ve at least heard of everyone on the guest list before these things actually happen. Wouldn’t do to have some stranger crashing the party, you know?” He flicked some imaginary dirt from his claws. “What’s your field of study?”

There was a momentary flush of embarrassment through Skyfire’s systems, because through technicality he  _ was _ a stranger crashing the party, but it didn’t really feel like the jab had been directed at him. “Uh, xenobiology. Life on other planets.” He braced himself for the biting questions on why he’d waste time with something like that. Most mechs didn’t understand the draw of it, especially when he mentioned the part where he focused more on organic life.

But rather than invite disdain all his admission seemed to do was catch the Seeker’s interest. “Any particular focus? Biomechanical, organic, flora or fauna?”

Oh. Oh  _ okay. _ “Um, organic,” he said, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking as much as it sounded to his audials. In his defense, it had been a really long time since anyone had asked him about his work. Even if the Seeker was being ingenuine, he’d given Skyfire a chance to talk, and by Primus the shuttle was going to take it. “I work more with alien flora, but that’s mostly just because of convenience. It’s a lot easier to grow and reproduce plantlife than animals, especially when you’re living in university-provided housing, and plants are a lot easier to create a controlled environment for. Animals tend to have very specific needs in terms of diet and living situations and I don’t want to accidentally kill something because I haven’t figured out how to take care of it.” 

He had accidentally killed his plants before, and while he’d definitely still felt bad, it was a lot different than accidentally killing an animal. The latter just felt cruel.

“Do you have any kind of goal in mind with your studies?” the Seeker asked, scooting a bit closer and looking up at Skyfire with optics that at least  _ seemed _ like they held genuine interest. “Or is it just an effort to discover as much as possible?”

  
Skyfire stared down at the Seeker for a few moments while his vocalizer struggled to remember how to make words. “Uh…” He cleared his throat. “Just… trying to learn, I guess. Don’t really have any specific thing I’m trying to accomplish. I guess I’d like to discover, um, uncontacted sentient life at some point. Or maybe identify a new species. That’d be… pretty neat.”

The Seeker grinned up at him. “Well, I have to say, my initial assumptions about you have been proven  _ very _ wrong.”

“...Assumptions?”

“Oh, yes.” He patted Skyfire’s arm, and Skyfire hoped he couldn’t tell how warm the plating was at the point of contact. “No offense intended, but when I first saw you I assumed you were, perhaps, a delivery mech who had gotten incredibly lost. Or some poor spark who wandered in on accident. Certainly not that you were quite possibly one of the most intelligent mechs who showed up tonight.”

He flushed, looking away and biting his lip. He really should have been used to folks seeing him that way by now. And normally he was-- most times the jeers from the mechs who thought he was an idiot just by virtue of being a shuttle-class bounced right off his plating. But this one… stung a bit. Maybe it was because he wanted the Seeker to like him so badly. 

“It’s--”   
  


“I apologize.”

Skyfire blinked. Replayed the audio file, blinked again, and looked over at the Seeker. “What?”

“I said, I apologize.” He leaned back, not looking at Skyfire as he spoke. “I clearly shouldn’t have assumed anything about you, and I’m sorry for doing so.” 

  
“It’s… fine. I get it a lot.” And he so rarely got apologies for it. Most of the time once mechs realized he was a lot smarter than he looked, they just brushed it off with a joke or a half-sparked compliment and moved on with the conversation. 

The Seeker’s expression soured. “Just because you’re used to something doesn’t make it okay, and it certainly doesn’t make it okay for me to perpetrate it. I’ve dealt with enough people thinking I’m a violent imbecile just because of my frame type, I should know well enough not to assume anything about anyone else based on theirs. You should  _ never _ settle for letting people make incorrect and insulting conclusions about you.”

Skyfire got the sudden and inexplicable urge to hug him. “It’s okay,” he said, “really. It doesn’t bother me enough that I feel like I have to defend myself. I can just deal with it, especially because I tend to scare folks if I ever get mad.”

“Maybe you  _ should  _ scare them,” the Seeker snapped. “That would certainly teach them not to assume.”

There was a small jolt of fear in Skyfire’s spark at the mere notion he could ever frighten someone, especially intentionally. “No way!” He shook his head. “I don’t want to do that! I hate making people feel bad,” he mumbled the last part, wringing his servos together. “Makes my tanks churn.” Memories of the way mechs would flinch back if he raised his voice or moved too suddenly rose unbidden. It had been an unfortunately frequent occurrence, until he started making an effort to carry himself in a way that made him seem as small and unimposing as possible.

The Seeker was staring at him incredulously. Then he shook his head and rolled his optics, pulling his legs up and planting himself against Skyfire’s side. “You’re the most ridiculous shuttle I’ve ever met.”

“Um.” Skyfire could feel his face heating up, and any hope that it wasn’t obvious was dashed when he saw the faint pink glow cast over the Seeker’s white plating as Skyfire looked over at him. He held himself as still as possible, one arm frozen in the air as he couldn’t decide where exactly to put it. “Th… thank you?” It probably wasn’t a compliment. But it was hard to be insulted by anything with the Seeker pressed up against him like that.

“That’s  _ exactly _ what I’m talking about. All this bulk,” he said, punctuating it by reaching up to bump his fist against Skyfire’s chest, “and you’re afraid to use it. If  _ I _ had that kind of height, you can be sure I’d never let anyone forget who was in charge of the room.”

“I don’t really  _ want _ to be in charge of anything, though.”

“Ugh. You’re still ridiculous.” He waved a servo towards where Skyfire was still holding his arm in an effort to not accidentally make any more contact than the Seeker had already initiated. “And stop just sitting there, do something useful with yourself.”

Hesitating, because this whole situation was so wildly unlike anything Skyfire had run across before that he had no idea what he was supposed to do, he carefully set his arm down on the back of the bench. Rolling his optics again, the Seeker grabbed Skyfire’s wrist and hauled his arm over to set it around his midsection. At Skyfire’s muffled noise of surprise, he looked up with a suddenly innocent expression that Skyfire instantly knew was faked. “What?” he asked, pitiful tone just as phony as the look he was giving the shuttle, “it’s cold out here. Seekers aren’t built to retain heat, you know.”

That kind of sounded fake, but he didn’t actually know enough about Seekers to dispute it, so instead he just sat there silently with his face bright pink as the Seeker (whose name he still didn’t know) settled comfortably against his side. Despite how strange this entire situation was, he still preferred it to being inside, with all those stuffy noblemechs and public officials staring at him like he didn’t belong.

“So,” the Seeker began after a solid five minutes of silence, “tell me more about your studies. Do you go on off-planet expeditions and find samples yourself? Or do you have some kind of delivery system set up?” 

“Uh, delivery system,” Skyfire answered automatically. “Technically I’m designed to be spaceworthy, but I don’t have any coworkers who are, and even if you have a permit the university doesn’t allow mechs to go off-planet on their own. So until I find someone to go with me I have to rely on putting in requests to the mechs who do regularly make trips to other worlds. It’s kind of a toss-up whether they bring back what I actually need or not.” 

“Doesn’t that get annoying?”

“Kind of,” he said with a shrug, idly moving his arm to make his hold on the Seeker a bit more comfortable, servo settling on the red plating of his waist. “Certainly slows down my work, but even if they don’t bring me exactly what I asked for they usually bring back something interesting. So I just figure out how to work with whatever it is.”

The Seeker mumbled something incoherent that was probably a little insulting, claws tracing down Skyfire’s arm. “So accommodating,” he mumbled. “Waste of a shuttle frame.”

Skyfire huffed. “I didn’t _ ask _ to be built this way, you know.”

“I know,” the Seeker said, voice instantly going from bitter and snappish to quiet understanding. “Sorry. I know you didn’t have a choice, and that’s… not what I meant. I just--” He huffed. “You shouldn’t be made to feel like you have to settle for subpar results just so you don’t make someone a little uncomfortable.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Skyfire said, voice quiet, “but it is what it is. Just my lot in life.” He’d had to deal with it for long enough that he couldn’t be bothered to let it get to him anymore. “I’m lucky the university lets me stay and work there at all, to be honest. They aren’t historically very accepting of flight frames, especially ones built for manual labor rather than intellectual pursuits like me.”

The Seeker scowled. “You should have found a place to study here in Vos. There’s plenty of good schools who have no qualms about accepting any flight frame, not just Seekers. They could’ve gotten you what you needed.”

“Probably could have. Might’ve been better. But Iacon was the best, and I wanted to go there, so the mechs in charge could shove it up their afts.” A startled noise from the Seeker. “I can deal with as many nasty looks and insults about my size as they want to throw at me. ‘Cause at the end of the day I’m still there and studying what I want to study.”

Silence from the mech still curled up against him. Then; “Well,” the Seeker said, softly and kind of awed. “I guess there’s a bit more brazenness in you than I’d been led to believe.”

“Hah. Not quite. I’ve just had to deal with too much scrap from the mechs in charge for too long to be cowed by petty insults anymore.” The longer they talked, the less nervous he found himself. It was nice being able to just talk genuinely with someone about this sort of thing. 

“I suppose I can understand  _ that _ at least.”

Skyfire frowned, glancing down at the Seeker. His expression was somewhere halfway between a scowl and a pout. 

“So, I’ve told you a whole lot about myself,” he said, waiting for the Seeker to look up at him curiously and indicate he was actually listening before continuing, “but you haven’t really told me anything about yourself. You let me ramble about my studies, so now let me ask; what kind of science are  _ you _ interested in?”

“Who says I’m interested in any kind of science?”

He just leveled the Seeker with a Look™. “You wouldn’t have asked me so much and listened so well about what I study if you weren’t at least a little interested. You don’t seem like the sort to ask questions about things you don’t care about.” The Seeker looked at him, startled, probably about how right he was. That just made Skyfire grin at him. “Thought we both agreed I wasn’t as dumb as I looked?”

The other’s scowl deepened, but there was something good-natured about it. “Damn you for figuring out how to read me so quickly,” he grumbled. “Fine. Engineering physics, with a specific focus on mechanics. Technological development.” He paused. “Weapons. Big ones.” 

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Anything?” He shrugged. “I don’t really design weapons with any specific use in mind. I don’t think we particularly need any more fighting, we spend too much time on it already, I just like the science of it all. Figuring out the right combination of energy sources and sundry to create something powerful. I have a design for a fusion cannon I’ve been working on, actually, it’s got too high of an energy consumption and too big of a blowback to be at all practical for any common use, but I mostly just wanted to prove it was possible to build.”

Skyfire couldn’t  _ really _ relate, since his focus was kind of on the exact opposite of that sort of thing, but he understood the feeling behind it at least. “It’s about the discovery aspect,” he said. “Learning something new. Solving a problem, even if it’s a problem that you made up for yourself and doesn’t actually exist in a real world scenario.”

The Seeker looked up at him, grinning with something like relief behind the expression. “Exactly,” he said. “No one here gets it. But that’s  _ exactly _ what it’s about.”

“Did you actually build it?”

“I did. Well-- a prototype of it, anyways. Almost knocked myself offline and blew a hole in the wall, but it worked.” He’d started toying with Skyfire’s digits at some point, lifting the shuttle’s servo and splaying his own digits against it. Skyfire couldn’t help but silently marvel at the difference in size between them. “It’s just sitting on a shelf gathering dust for now. I’ll probably end up stripping it down for parts at some point.” 

He didn’t sound too disappointed, so Skyfire didn’t feel disappointed either, even if the idea of any technological development being destroyed didn’t really sit right.

“Hey,” the Seeker said suddenly. He was staring up at the blanket of stars above them when Skyfire glanced over at him. “You said you wanted to explore worlds beyond Cybertron, right? Find new life and such. But couldn’t because you didn’t have anyone who could go with you.”

“That’s right,” Skyfire said quietly. “Where are you going with this?”

“Well. I’ve never really had that much of a chance to see anything outside Vos, much less on a whole other planet.” He threaded his digits through Skyfire’s, and the shuttle tried to ignore the way the gesture made his spark jump. “I may not have much of an interest in alien lifeforms, especially not organic ones-- no offense-- but I’ve always been curious about what the rest of the universe is like. So if you ever decide you’re tired of dealing with subpar results and want to find that partner to explore with…” 

Ever-so-gently, Skyfire ran his thumb along the side of the Seeker’s servo. “I’ll be sure to keep you in mind,” he said, voice barely a whisper. 

The Seeker smiled and reached up with his free servo, brushing it against the side of Skyfire’s helm. It suddenly occurred to him that throughout the entire conversation, all the things they’d shared and how close they’d gotten in such a short span of time, he’d never  _ actually _ learned the Seeker’s name. Or give his own.

“I never introduced myself by the way,” he mumbled. “I’m Skyfire.”

“Skyfire,” the Seeker said, almost reverently, and Skyfire felt a shiver up his backstrut at the way his name sounded in the Seeker’s voice. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’m--”

_ “Starscream!” _

It was like a gun had gone off. Within a split second of the shout, the Seeker had thrown himself away from where he’d been curled up against Skyfire’s side, leaving the shuttle baffled and caught entirely off-guard. He blinked a couple times and had to take a moment to register the sudden change in position. As well as the sudden change in atmosphere-- the easy openness from before had been suddenly replaced with a tense chill in the air.

Skyfire looked over at the Seeker. He was standing a few paces away with his head held high and his wings pressed tight against his back, clearly stressed. At least there were some similarities between the ways flight frames showed their emotions.

“Starscream, where have you  _ been?” _ Skyfire looked back towards the doors, where another Seeker in blue and white was striding towards them, a scowl on his face.  _ Starscream…  _ Now why did he recognize that name? “We thought you got fragging kidnapped or something, the diplomat from Praxus you were talking to before you ditched him is halfway to creating an incident. You can’t just wander off from conversations you aren’t interested in when those conversations are with  _ senators _ , you should really know this by now!”

“Oh, cool your thrusters, Thundercracker,” Starscream (and that name still sounded  _ really _ familiar for some reason) said dismissively, waving a servo. “He wasn’t worth my time. As for the  _ incident, _ isn’t your job as one of my advisors to stop that from happening?”

“Yeah. By advising  _ you _ on the best way to handle things so there’s no problems. Not by appeasing noblemechs you brush off for no good reason.” 

“I had a  _ very _ good reason.” He put his servos on his hips, baring his teeth slightly. “He was making not-so-subtle comments about the way I run this place. Directly to my face, I might add. He dared to suggest that maybe we should allow foreign peacekeepers from  _ his _ polity to barge into our streets and start cleaning things up.”

The blue seeker (Thundercracker?) gave a weary sigh. “Okay, that is a pretty slag-headed move. But still, you could’ve politely excused yourself or something instead of literally running away.” He paused and frowned, apparently just noticing Skyfire despite the shuttle being bright white and making no effort to hide himself. “Who’s this?”

“Ah. Right.” Starscream walked over to Skyfire and patted his shoulder. “Thundercracker, meet Skyfire. He’s a scientist from Iacon.”

Thundercracker blinked. Then rolled his optics. “So  _ that’s _ where you’ve been. Really, Starscream? This is supposed to be about making Vos’s ruling body seem more approachable, since you so often refuse to make public appearances. Not you disappearing halfway through to get under the panels of some shuttle class.”

Skyfire flushed bright pink. “It’s not-- We weren’t--” he stuttered. “Um, it’s-- it’s not-- not like that.”

_ Ruling body. _ Oh, Primus.  _ That _ was why his name seemed familiar.

“S-sorry,” he mumbled, hunching his shoulders and balling his fists against his thighs and looking away. Trying to seem as small as physically possible. All his earlier casual ease had vanished the second he’d remembered where he’d heard the Seeker’s name before. It had been from Wheeljack, the hour before they’d actually arrived at the party, when the other scientist was explaining the more important mechs who’d be there. Including the  _ guy who was literally in charge of Vos as a whole. _ “I-- Um.”

“Damnit, Thundercracker,” Starscream hissed, venom in his tone. “I finally found a mech who didn’t want to talk to me just because he thought I’d be able to grant him some favor and now look at what you’ve done.” 

“What??”

“Nevermind. Go distract the Praxian or something, I’ll be down in just a minute. I promise.”

Scowling and muttering to himself, Thundercracker still complied, turning and walking away and letting the doors shut behind him. As soon as he was gone, Starscream knelt down in front of Skyfire, gently taking his shaking servos and easing them apart. “Skyfire, listen. You aren’t in trouble.”

  
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t-- Um--”

Starscream smiled, a bit sad. “You didn’t have a clue who I was, did you?”

Skyfire shook his head, mortified, and firmly stared at the ground. There was a  _ reason _ he never liked going to anything like this, and it wasn’t just because he didn’t really like talking to people when there were rules about what he could and couldn’t say involved. He always managed to frag something up. Big, clumsy shuttle. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t mean any offense.”

“You didn’t offend me. Skyfire, look at me,” he said, and Skyfire complied. There was nothing in his expression but gentle understanding. “Do I look offended?”

“...No?”

“No, I don’t. I’m not. Honestly, I’m more  _ glad  _ than anything that you didn’t know who I was. Understand? It’s been  _ forever _ since I’ve been able to just talk to someone without them getting all proper or trying to pretend to be anything they aren’t, either because they think they can get favor from me or because they’re scared if they piss me off I’ll have them executed or something. Talking to you was the most fun I’ve had in years. I don’t want you acting any differently around me, alright? This revelation changes nothing.”

“But you’re the leader of Vos,” he mumbled, glancing down at their entwined servos. Starscream was all important, and here he was, on his knees like  _ Skyfire _ was the noteworthy one. His spark stuttered, and not necessarily in an uncomfortable way. “Like, of the whole city. I’m  _ supposed  _ to act differently.” 

Starscream shrugged. “Technically, I’m more of a figurehead. There’s a whole council that’s really in charge of the decision making. Sure, I can veto rules they try and pass, and make statements on their behalf, and they kind of have to listen to what I say. But I’m not exactly a dictator. Even if sometimes that might make my job easier,” he muttered that last bit. Then shook his head. “The  _ point _ is that I’m not actually very powerful. You don’t have to be so nervous.” His expression turned a little sad. “I’m still the same mech. And… My invitation still holds true.”

“Invitation…?”

A smile, and Starscream leaned up a bit further so he could meet Skyfire’s optics. “For that partnership you mentioned. Traveling the universe together. I’m sure I could find someone to handle my responsibilities while I’m gone.”

Oh.

Skyfire flushed, and Starscream laughed, and the shuttle decided he definitely would not mind hearing more of that sound.

  
“I should really get back to it, before Thundercracker comes storming back up here and drags me in by the wing. Wouldn’t  _ that _ be embarrassing. But here,” he said, just as Skyfire received a ping with a datapacket across a local channel. “If you decide you want to take me up on my offer. Or just to talk.” He opened the datapacket, and was presented with a comm code. “That’s my personal code, so you won’t have to waste time going through any official channels.”

“Um. Thank you,” Skyfire mumbled, sure his blush was only worsened by the gesture. “I… think I’d like to. Eventually. Probably gonna need a little while to, um, convince myself.” Process everything. Also, work up the courage. Not even because Starscream was a political leader, but because he was a very pretty seeker who had just given Skyfire his personal comm code like it was nothing.

Starscream grinned. “So long as it doesn’t take  _ too _ much time. Otherwise I’ll start to think you don’t like me or something.”

From somewhere inside, there came a muffled shout of  _ “Starscream, get your aft in here!!” _ and the Seeker sighed. “And that’s that, I suppose.” He got to his pedes, briefly resting a servo on the side of Skyfire’s helm. “I had fun tonight. With this. Talking to you. See you later, alright?” With one last grin, he turned and swept away, leaving Skyfire alone on the balcony.

[Hey, Skyfire,] came a comm from Wheeljack. [Where’d you get to? I can’t see you anywhere in here, and I dunno how I managed to lose a whole shuttle.]

[Um,] he sent back, still kind of processing everything that had just happened. [I… met someone?]

[Oh? As in,  _ met someone _ met someone?]

[Maybe???]

[Damn, Skyfire. Didn’t know you had it in you. You’ll have to tell me all about it when we get back home,] he could practically hear the cheek in his friend’s voice. [Now come on, I wanna head out. It looks like the guy in charge is about to start a fist-fight with some Praxian diplomat and I don’t really want to get trapped in the middle of it.]

_ Oh, dear. _ What a mech he’d chosen to fancy. [Coming, Wheeljack.]

As he headed inside and back down towards the main room, he idly input the comm code he’d been given into his contacts list. He  _ would _ comm the Seeker at some point.

...Eventually.


End file.
